Increasing efficiency and competitiveness with a twin robot installation at Tomark

The partnership with Robotec s.r.o., a robotics integrator, enabled Alma to expand its business to Slovakia in 2008. Robotec s.r.o. is a modern company that deals with projection, realization and service of robotic workstations as well as with supplying consumables and spare parts for them. In spring 2008, Robotec installed a twin robot installation controlled thanks to multitasking functionality of the OTC AX-C controller in the company Tomark s.r.o, Presov (Slovakia).

Before using robot welding, Tomark used to do the job manually on work bench. Robot welding with two robots at one part was the first step to increase the efficiency of their production. But very soon they noticed that it was not efficient enough. The first complex part needed approximately 3 months to teach all the jobs. So there could only be one solution: off-line programming.

The challenge for Alma in this project was to create a postprocessor able to convert the act/weld software data into the specific multitasking language of the robot as well as to represent all the technical features from the controller. Those are 2 touch sensors with wire, welding processes with seam tracking and weaving for 2 welding engines. Nevertheless to calibrate this big installation with 5 external axes.

Advantages that the managers from Tomark have found with the act/weld offline programming software:

easy programming (it is hard to teach a twin robot installation on a 12m track)
avoid collisions while teaching
short programming time
short lead time
no blocking of current production while programming
increasing capacity
increasing efficiency and competitiveness

About Tomark

The Tomark s.r.o. company was established in August 1995. The company specializes in machining, mechanical working, cutting of metallurgical material, manufacturing of welded constructions and components. The wide range of available technologies enables them to manufacture products for clients according to their technical documentation, alternatively according to Tomark’s own solutions. The dynamic development during the short history of the company indicates that the company is able to meet the most demanding requirements of its clients. It is the longterm objective of the company to create modern competitive enterprise through investments into the most modern technologies and the human resources development.

www.tomark.sk

About Robotec

The company Robotec s.r.o., established in 2001, deals with projection, realization and service of robotic workstations as well as with supplying of consumable parts. Thanks to proved qualities and professionalism, robotec s.r.o. has become an official general agent of well known Japanese robot producer OTC Daihen Corporation for Slovak and Czech markets. Wide range of robots for industrial automation, positioners, sliders, powerful control unit as well as high quality power sources for MIG/MAG, TIG and laser welding offers complex solution of industrial automation from one supplier. Robotec’s products offer cost effective solutions that may replace skilled personnel doing repetitive work.

www.robotec.sk

Calibration of the robotic cell.

Robotec's workshop.

The key points of multi-robot programming with act/weld

In order to reduce cycle times, industrial companies use more and more several robots working simultaneously. Off-line programming is very useful to manage the complexity of such installations and to maximize the robots’ productivity.

act/weld includes a comprehensive set of features to manage multi-robot programming:

complete modeling of the whole cell
creation of synchronization points between sequences belonging to one or to different controllers
complete simulation of the programmes showing the movements of all the robots realistically and taking into account the machine features (speed, acceleration, specific points) and cycle-time calculation
automatic check of the whole programme with visualisation of potential anomalies in the "tree view" (speed, collisions, accessibility, job tolerances)
collision detection on the complete model of the installation (part, tooling and machine)

How to avoid patches on the robot thanks to off-line programming

Off-line programming helps reduce manual operations in the workshop. It can even help avoid patches on the robot, while respecting some conditions:

to calibrate the robotic cell beforehand in act/weld (operation executed by Alma),
to ensure correct preparation of the part and tooling to guarantee positioning repeatability,
to implement systematic sensing (by seam group, before and during welding),
to activate joint follow-up for each seam.